Sunday, 30 January 2011

I guess today I am having trouble with the letting things go, letting things be part of my unconscious.

Today it feels like everything needs to be planned, repeated, planned again. Today it feels like the world needs certainty and concrete assurance. Today it feels like there are a few too many gambles to be made, a few too many heart-strings to be shortened in lending out to other people---in the acquaintances made, then broken over time.

But that is just today---Sunday. (And a Sunday kept at home, nursing a headache).

But tomorrow, tomorrow is a different day. And maybe those worries and uncertainties and doubts that baffle will clear tomorrow. Maybe a little embrace and a long walk is all the assurance I need.

Today consisted of baked potatoes---one for lunch, one for dinner--- and seeded toast with hazelnut spread.

It involved saying no to the Easter counter in the newsagents and the leftover birthday cake* at home. (But yes, yes please to a little dark, mint chocolate square).

And then there was the chapped hand, cold face, sore lipped walk to the train station, when I could so easily have taken the bus. (I walked past it. Twice).

And maybe, just maybe, my evening will finish off with a little work-out in front of the TV just before bed. (I cannot profess to be good at this. I cannot profess to move my body in the way demanded of me or to complete the rep with the determination it deserves. This is something, I hope, it will teach me---a love, a want, an enjoyment of exercise).

I cannot promise anything to my body---I can only try.

Today was a start---a half-laid, half-etched footprint, really. And please excuse the girliness or the vanity of this. But here provides permanence to my will-power and words to will, to spur, to accelerate onwards.

*My birthday celebrations officially ended last night with a few friends and a bowling alley. I lost, poorly, but it was fun. And, of course, there was cake.

Monday, 24 January 2011

This afternoon my love and I went to the cinema. We saw The King's Speech and I am wholeheartedly urging everyone to do the same---especially if you are even the tiniest bit interested in British history---or friendship, for that matter.

So it's plot won't shock you. It isn't a meandering path with an exaggerated or shocking climax---nor does it have innovative special effects...

I have a headache and a cold and an almost-cough (you know, the type of cough that you can feel brimming in your throat---the type of cough that may never actualise but still threatens, every now and again?)

But I have, otherwise, had a good day---with friends and a book I never finished.

In a lecture today (on a book I haven't yet read) it was suggested that we read literature only to aid us in reading the rest of the world. I am not sure I entirely agree - I think there is more to it than that, as with any art - but I certainly lean towards the understanding that it may, indeed, help. Because our readings are not merely fictitious---they are, when character-driven, highly sociable. Our feelings of empathy, of sadness---even of boredom---are driven by our reading of people. We meet characters not in their physicality, but most vividly in their mentality---and a connection, sometimes as strong as the bonds we make with friends, is formed.

Perhaps with all the reading I have been doing, it isn't terribly surprising that lately I have also felt myself reading people more acutely. I am seeing, more and more, a tenderness in their faces, in their actions, in the tones of their voice---in the renewed smiles of the love-lorn and the concern of doctors.

Word goes around that you can do little with a literature degree--- but if it is true - if my social and emotive awareness is heightened because of my reading - I am grateful, already. And in the moments that I do not quite get it - in the moments that I hear the wrong things or feel the hinge of pressure closing - I will search for it more.

6. Complete a Sketchbook Project (if they run it for 2012---my 2011 attempt remains incomplete)

7. Finish a story

8. Get fit, get healthy*

9. Host a Murder Mystery party

10. Try out - and photograph - twelve new baking recipes

11. Learn calligraphy

12. Learn to knit

13. Three reads: The Golden Notebook, The Hobbit and Lady Chatterley’s Lover

14. Write five reviews for Penguin

15. Write an article - and have it published - in the university paper

16. Go for a bike ride

17. Decorate my doll’s house

18. Have a driving lesson

19. Stop worrying

20. Do something charitable

21. Have an old-fashioned picnic

Of course there are more--- things that will probably come and go, filter in, then out, of my life, but these---these are the ones I have wanted to do for a while. Some are little things; some are much bigger, much wider, much more consuming of my time and of effort.

I hope that during my twenty-first year, you will be here---if you'd like to be, of course. But more than that---more than anything, really---I hope that he is.

*This is something only I will know---in body and in mind. And maybe in the hill I couldn't quite climb in one go during my holiday---maybe that will show my progress, too.

Next week, my love and I are going on a little pre-birthday holiday---first to Bath, then to London. I am, predictably, quite nervous (I always get nervous before - and even during - holidays. I think of all the things that could possibly, possibly go wrong. Sometimes I think I might even forget that it's a holiday). I will be taking my vintage suitcase with me and a few too many rolls of camera film...

Tuesday, 4 January 2011

Sometimes there are moments when only the words of others will do. Only they will comfort us, only they will illuminate aspects of the world we do not ordinarily see.

Today it is this.

"What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realised, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realising our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream." Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist.

Let's apply it.

Let's continue to realise, then follow our dreams. Let us reach the end even when the odds don't appear to be thrown in our favour. Because they are, you know.